Front Leaders Fear Fresh Kesri Bid For Prime Minstership

The certain victory of Sitaram Kesri in the Congress presidential election is sending tremors through United Front (UF) ranks. Front leaders are worried that Kesri may renew his bid for the prime ministership after he is formally elected the Congress party president today.

Kesri hopes to be elected with over 90 per cent of the votes polled, which would put him in a virtually unassailable position within the Congress. Front leaders fear that once Kesri is formally elected, he will get Congress backing for any plan he proposes. Several leaders close to Kesri are reported to be pressing him to make another attempt to put a Congress-led coalition into power.

 

Kesri yesterday flatly denied that he would again withdraw support to the UF government. But a senior Front leader disclosed that Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav is amenable to Kesris plans, which also involve the Laloo Prasad faction of the Janata Dal and G K Moopanars Tamil Maanila Congress (TMC).

Yadav is said to have already conveyed his willingness to join hands with Kesri in such a formulation. He is keen to formalise an alliance with the Congress in Uttar Pradesh and is reported to be in touch with Naresh Agarwal, deputy leader of the Congress in the state assembly.

Through Agarwal, Yadav has built bridges with state Congress chief Jitendra Prasada and conveyed his desire to join hands with Kesri at the Centre as well as in the state. A Congress-SP alliance alone can take on the BJP and the BSP in the state, he feels.

Yadav has told Congress leaders that he is in the United Front not out of choice, but due to `majboori (compulsion). He had moved close to Pawar during the assembly and municipal elections in Maharashtra, which suited the Congress leader in his bid to win allies in the north. But Yadav also sent neutral messages to Kesri through the latters aides during the run-up to the Congress party election. He even promised Kesri the support of his `men in the Congress in the party election.

A senior Front leader did not rule out the possibility that recent developments in the Janata Dal